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Tupelo Masonic Lodge No. 318 F&AM - Forum

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

MASONRY & THE MYSTERIES OF ELEUSIS - Bro. P.D. Newman, 32°

"Two Right Hands"

For it appears to me that among the many exceptional and divine things
your Athens has produced and contributed to human life, nothing is better than
[the Eleusinian] mysteries. For by means of them we have been transformed from
a rough and savage way of life to the state of humanity, and have been
civilized. Just as they are called initiations, so in actual fact we have
learned from them the fundamentals of life, and have grasped the basis not only
for living with joy but also dying with a better hope.[1]

It has been said that Freemasonry is a
continuation of the various Mystery cults which flourished in ancient Egypt,
Greece, Rome, Persia – and even India, if we ascribe to the theories set forth
by W.Bro. J.S.M. Ward[2]
– before they were indiscriminately suppressed in favor of the new, growing,
Christian religion, the same of which brought with it its own indomitable
version of the ‘Sacred Mysteries.’ Gen. Albert Pike, 33°
even declared that “Masonry is identical with the ancient Mysteries,” though he
later added that this is so only to a limited extent. For in Pike’s estimation,
Masonry is

“but an imperfect image of [the Mysteries’]
brilliancy, the ruins only of their grandeur, and a system that has experienced
progressive alterations, the fruits of social events, political circumstances,
and the ambitious imbecility of its improvers.”

It is generally believed
that central to many of these Mysteries, whether they were solar[3]
or agrarian in nature, was the indoctrination of their participants regarding
the reality of deity and the immortality of the soul[4].
In most cases, these doctrines appear to have been imparted via a complex
ritualized dramatization of the traditional myths and legends surrounding the central
deity of the cult, wherein the candidate himself was oftentimes made
consubstantial with the deity, suffering his trials, death, and resurrection –
and in some instances, even acting out the deity’s undertakings while
sojourning through the Land of the Dead. It was precisely these ritualized reenactments
that more often than not constituted the various ceremonies of Initiation into
the ancient Mysteries, the completion of which veritably made one a bona fide member of the Mystery cult.
Additionally, obligations of secrecy concerning all that had transpired during
the ceremony of Initiation were enforced upon everyone present, the breaking of
which, participants were duly informed, was punishable by penalty of death.

The most popular of the ancient Mystery
cults was indisputably that of the goddess Demeter and her daughter Kore or Persephone
which were celebrated at Eleusis, Greece from around 1450 BCE to 392 CE. The mythos of this cult narrates the story
of the grain goddess Demeter and the lengths to which she was willing to go in
order to reunite with her beloved daughter Persephone, the latter of which had
earlier been abducted by the subterranean god Hades or Pluto while she was gathering
flowers with the other ‘Flower Maidens.’ In the end, Persephone was finally permitted
to return to the land of the living and reunite with her mother, but only under
the condition that she re-descend to the Underworld for one season out of every
year – namely, winter – in order reassume her role as the Queen of Hades[5].
It was with this narrative of a periodical descent into the Underworld and
subsequent return to the realm of the living that the Hierophants at Eleusis
communicated to the candidates their cherished doctrine of the immortality of
the soul[6].

The primary celebrations observed at Eleusis
are known to have consisted of two separate Mysteries: a Lesser and a Greater.
The Lesser Mystery appears to have been celebrated between the winter solstice
and the vernal equinox, and entailed the preliminary indoctrination of the candidates
regarding the central mythos of the
cult. Participation therein constituted one a Mystis or Initiate, and was
the mandatory prerequisite which prepared him for admittance into the Greater
Mystery, the latter of which was celebrated between the autumnal equinox and
the winter solstice. Unlike the Lesser, it is believed that the Greater Mystery
did not involve a lengthy recapitulation of the cult’s sacred mythos, but rather consisted of something
which was seen directly – hence the
title of Epopt or Seer applied to Initiates of this level.
Therefore, we can be confident that what the Mystae heard only at second-hand in the Lesser Mystery, the Epopt witnessed or experienced at
first-hand in the Greater[7].
Additionally, participants in the Greater Mystery were expected to observe
certain specific dietary restrictions, such as complete abstinence from foods including
fish, legumes, apples, and most especially, pomegranates and “barndoor fowl” –
all of which held a special, symbolic significance in regards to the Mysteries
of Eleusis. “The pomegranate,” for example, says Greek scholar Jane Ellen
Harrison, “was dead men’s food, and once tasted drew Persephone back to the
shades.” Similarly, the rooster was said to have been consecrated to the
goddess Demeter:

“Porphyry in his treatise on Abstinence from Animal Food, notes the reason and the rigour of the
Eleusinian taboos. Demeter, he says, is a goddess of the lower world and they
consecrate the cock to her…We are apt to associate the cock with daylight and
his early morning crowing, but the Greeks for some reason regarded the bird as
chthonic.[8]”

It is due perhaps to
these chthonic associations that the
rooster also happens to be an important symbol within the gloomy Chamber of Reflection, where the
candidate for Masonic Initiation is caused to tarry for a while prior to taking
the 1°. Like Persephone in the Underworld, the candidate being held in the
dungeon-like Chamber of Reflection is oftentimes surrounded with grim reminders
of his own mortality, but as was also the case with Persephone, it is the rooster
which heralds the illumination awaiting the candidate upon his release from the
Chamber. It is noteworthy that the rooster was also said to have
been a favorite pet of the psychopomp Mercury, whose image, according to W.Bro.
John Yarker[9],
was displayed within the temple at Eleusis along with those of Sol and Luna[10].[11]

Another important celebration observed at
Eleusis was the annual Haloa festival
which was celebrated in honor of both Demeter and Dionysus in and around the
winter solstice. This celebration, which Harrison called “the very counterpart”
to the Eleusinian Mysteries, took place on Triptolemus’ threshing-floor, where
the sacred barley grown on the Rarian plain, the same of which would be used to
make the mysterious kykeon[12]
potion drunk during the Greater Mystery, was ceremonially threshed. According
to Harrison,

“The affiliation of the worship of the corn-goddess
to that of the wine-god is of the first importance. The coming of Dionysos
brought a new spiritual impulse to the religion of Greece…and it was to this
new impulse that the Eleusinian Mysteries owed…their ultimate dominance. Of
[the Eleusinian Mysteries] the Haloa is, I think, the primitive prototype. As
to the primitive gist of the Haloa, there is no shadow of a doubt: the name
speaks for itself. Harpocration rightly explains the festival, ‘the Haloa gets is
name, according to Philochorus, from the fact that people hold sports at the threshing-floors, and he says it is
celebrated in the month of Poseidon[13].’…[That]
the Haloa was celebrated in the month of Poseidon[14]
[is] a fact as surprising as it is ultimately significant. What has a threshing
festival to do with mid-winter, when all the grain should be safely housed in
the barns? Normally, as in ancient days, the threshing follows as soon as may
be after the cutting of the corn; it is threshed and afterwards winnowed in the
open threshing-floor, and in
mid-winter is no time even in Greece for an open-air operation. The answer is
simple. The shift of date is due to Dionysos. The rival festivals of Dionysos
were in mid-winter. He possessed himself of the festivals of Demeter, took over
her threshing-floor and compelled the anomaly of a winter threshing festival.
The latest time that a real threshing festival could take place is Pyanepsion,
but by Poseidon it is just possible to have an early Pithoigia and to revel with Dionysos. There could be no clearer
witness to the might of the incoming god.”

It may be surprising to
some to learn that the threshing-floor also happens to be an important symbol
within Freemasonry.

In
the lectures of the so-called ‘American Ritual,’ which Mackey lamented as
“being lost or becoming obsolete” even in his day, the candidate for Masonic
Initiation is described as one who is travelling “to the threshing-floor of
Ornan the Jebusite, where language was restored and Masonry found”.The association of Ornan’s threshing-floor
with Freemasonry stems from the fact that King Solomon’s Temple was said to
have been erected on that very same site. The land had earlier been purchased
from Ornan by King David, Solomon’s father, for the purpose of erecting there an
altar, whereon David was to make sacrificial offerings after witnessing a
vision of the “angel of the Lord” whom was seen standing within the vicinity of
the threshing-floor. Before that time, all sacrifices would have generally been
made on the ‘altar of the burnt offering’ which was housed in the tabernacle[15].
However, following David’s sacrifice, it was decreed that a permanent temple
should be erected atop Ornan’s threshing-floor – a temple which would
eventually come to replace the ‘tabernacle in the wilderness’ as the domicile
of the Jewish deity. It is this permanent temple wherein the various Degrees of
Ancient Craft Masonry symbolically take place. Therefore, it was said of the candidate
for Masonic Initiation that he is allegorically travelling “to the
threshing-floor of Ornan,” i.e., the
Temple of Solomon the King. The threshing-floor is thus implicative of Initiation
and the Masonic Lodge. In demonstration of this relationship, Bro. John S. Nagy
says that it is

“[u]pon Initiation [that] Masons come out of the
profane world, filled with much darkness, ignorance and confusion…and they
approach the Masonic world, where there is Light…as at the Temple Built upon
Ornan’s Threshing-floor”.

Other important symbols
connecting Masonry to the Mysteries celebrated at Eleusis can be found in the lectures
of the Fellowcraft Degree.

On his symbolic Passage to the Middle
Chamber of the Temple, the attention of the newly-made Fellowcraft is directed
to a most peculiar image: a sheaf of
wheat suspended near the bank of a river[16].
This depiction is usually found displayed on the South wall of the Lodge, located
just behind the Junior Warden. The word associated with it, which can be translated
variously as an ear of corn, a branch of an olive tree, and a stream of water[17],
is equally curious. As Pike pointed out,

“We do not know when this word was adopted, and no
one has ever been able to find any especial significance in it as a Masonic word. But I am entirely
satisfied that there was originally a concealed significance in every word used
in a Masonic degree. Some secret meaning and application was covered and concealed by each of them.”

The explanation provided
for the word in question is similarly obscure. According to Mackey, “the
Gileadites under Jephthah made use of [this word] as a test at the passage of
the river Jordan after a victory over the Ephramites,” but Pike was admittedly not
so convinced:

“We fail now to see the application to anything in
Free-Masonry of the account given by the Hebrew chronicler of the use made of
this word, by which to detect the men of a particular Tribe, who pronounced it
differently from others.”

Bro. I. Edward Clark was
likewise suspicious of the traditional explanation provided for the word in
question, and in The Royal Secret he offered
an alternative interpretation:

“A reference to the Eleusinian Mysteries will go far
to clear up [the probable true meaning of “ears of corn hanging by a
water-ford,” or “a sheaf of wheat suspended near the bank of a river,”] and
give us the true import of this symbol. The Eleusinian Mysteries were derived
from those of Isis, who was known to the Greeks by the name of Ceres, and also Cybele. Ceres, or Cybele, was the goddess of the harvest, and was
represented, like the beautiful virgin of the zodiac, bearing spears of ripe
corn. In like manner, Isis was with the Egyptians emblematic of the harvest
season. In the Egyptian zodiac Isis occupied the place of Virgo, and was represented with three ears of corn in her hand. The
Syrian word for an ear of corn is “sibola”…This word also means “a stream of
water,” and the emblem of ears of corn or a sheaf of wheat near a water-course,
or river, was one of the emblems of the Eleusinian and Tyrian (or Dionysiac)
Mysteries. As the word had a double meaning, the picture formed a rebus. The
river is the river Nile, the overflow of which enriched the soil and brought
forth the abundant harvests of Egyptian corn, all of which was symbolically
represented by the ears of corn hanging by a river[18].”

Other noteworthy symbols
found in the Fellowcraft Degree which are readily relatable to the Mysteries
celebrated at Eleusis include “those two famous, brazen pillars” between which
the candidate is at one point in the ritual caused to pass.

King Solomon’s Temple was said to have been fitted
with two impressive, brazen pillars – one called Boaz and the other, Jachin
– which were set in Temple’s outer portico as symbols of Strength and Establishment.
In addition to the terrestrial and celestial globes which were placed upon
their summit, we are told that those two magnificent pillars were lavishly ornamented
with “a representation of net-work, lily-work, and pomegranates[19].”
In the Fellowcraft Degree the candidate is informed that these decorations “are
said to denote Unity, Peace, and Plenty,” for “[t]he net-work, from its
connection, denotes unity; the lily-work, from its whiteness, and the retired
place in which it grows, purity and peace; the pomegranates, from the
exuberance of their seed, denote plenty.” However, they all three of them also
happen to be symbols associated with the Mysteries celebrated at Eleusis. In
the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, the lily
was specifically named as being among the flowers gathered by Persephone at the
moment of her fateful abduction. Similarly, it was her naïve acceptance of the seeds
of the pomegranate which secured for Hades Persephone’s annual return to the
Land of the Dead. The accompanying net-work, too, can be related directly back
to the story of Persephone’s abduction. In Greek mythology, nets are associated
with the goddess Britomartis, the daughter of Eubulus and thus the
grand-daughter of Demeter – both of whom were prominent figures within the
Eleusinian Mysteries. In the third installment of Callimachus’ Hymn to Artemis, we read of Britomartis’
desperate retreat into the nets of some nearby fishermen in a final attempt to
evade the ruthless advances of her pursuer King Minos of Crete. Following this
episode, the goddess Britomartis came to be known fittingly as Diktyanna or the Lady of the Nets. According to religious scholar Edward
Greswell,

“[T]he Britomartis of Crete…was absolutely the
antitype of the Kore of Eleusis; and…she was originally conceived and proposed
in the same relation to the Cretan Deo, as the Kore to the Eleusinian
Demeter…We see too that as the Kore in her proper fable was represented as in
danger from the violence of Aïdoneusor
Pluto, so was this Britomartis in the Cretan one, as similarly in danger from
the violence of Minos; and as the Kore succumbs to this violence in her proper
fable, and is actually carried away, so does this Britomartis in the Cretan
fall a victim to that of Minos, though not in the same way, by being carried
under ground, but by being forced into the sea [in fishing nets]. The same
physical truth both might be, and probably was, adumbrated by each of these
representations, only from a different point of view. The authors of the
Grecian fable looked on the principle of vegetable life as residing chiefly in
the ground; the authors of the Cretan looked a little deeper, and discovered,
as they thought, the true principle and first beginnings of vegetable life, in
the moisture of the ground imbibed by the seed; in the aqueous principle, the
true pabulum of vegetable life in every form and shape; in the rains and the
dews, from which the earth derived its moisture, and in the sea, as the
ultimate source and fountain-head of both. And therefore with a stricter regard
to the absolute order, connection, and dependencies of things, they chose to
represent their Britomartis as lost at first in the sea, and as recovered at last from the sea[20].”

Thus we see that the
symbolic representations of the net-work, lily-work, and pomegranates which
adorned the pillars that were said to have been set within the outer portico of
King Solomon’s Temple allude not only to the concepts of “Unity, Peace, and
Plenty” referenced in the Fellowcraft Degree, but are also indicative of the Mysteries
celebrated at Eleusis, wherein one was chiefly indoctrinated regarding the
immortality of the soul.

As explained above, the reality of deity and
the immortality of the soul were in all probability the primary doctrines
intended to be imparted during most, if not all of the Mysteries, including
those celebrated at Egypt, Greece, Rome, Persia, India, and elsewhere about the
globe. In the case of those celebrated at Eleusis, the participants were
instructed via a ritualized dramatization of the central myth associated with the
goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone, wherein the candidate was made
consubstantial with the latter in his symbolic descent into the Land of the
Dead and miraculous return to the realm of the living. In the author’s
estimation, it is no mere coincidence that Masonry requires of Her Initiates a
belief in this same ideology. The adopted means of imparting those concepts,
too, have their origin nowhere but in the rites and ceremonies observed during
the celebration of the ancient Mysteries.

The relationship between the ancient Mystery
cults and modern Freemasonry is perhaps best reflected in W.Bro. J.S.M. Ward’s
insightful and pertinent poem The
Mysteries[21]:

In every race and ever clime,

Since the earliest days of Time,

Men have taught the Mystic Quest

Shown the Way to Peace and rest.

Bacchus died, and rose again,

On the golden Asian Plain;

Osiris rose from out the grave,

And thereby mankind did save:

Adonis likewise shed his blood,

By the yellow Syrian flood,

Zoroaster brought to birth

Mithra from His Cave of Earth.

And to-day in Christian Lands

We with them can join hands.

REFERENCES

Clark, I.
Edward. The Royal Secret

Callimachus.
Hymn to Artemis

Duncan,
Malcom C. Duncan’s Ritual of Freemasonry

Frazer, J.G.
The Golden Bough

Greswell,
Edward. Origines Kalendariae Hellenicae

Harrison,
Jane Ellen. Prolegomena to the Study of
Greek Religion

Hutchinson,
William. The Spirit of Masonry

Keller, Mara
Lynn. The Ritual Path of Initiation into
the Eleusinian Mysteries

Mackenzie,
Kenneth R.H. The Royal Masonic
Cyclopaedia

Mackey,
Albert G. The History of Freemasonry

Mackey,
Albert G. The Symbolism of Freemasonry

Merkur,
Daniel. The Mysteries of Manna

Meyer,
Marvin W. The Ancient Mysteries

Nagy, John
S. Building Boaz

Pike,
Albert. Morals and Dogma

Pike,
Albert. Sephir H’Debarim

Ruck, Carl
A.P. Sacred Mushrooms of the Goddess

The Holy Bible, Master Mason Edition

Vail,
Charles H. The Ancient
Mysteries & Modern Masonry

Ward, J.S.M.
Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods

Ward, J.S.M.
The Entered Apprentice’s Handbook

Wasson,
Hofmann, & Ruck. The Road to Eleusis

Yarker,
John. The Arcane Schools

[1]
Marcus, in Cicero, On the Laws (De
legibus), 2.14.36, with reference to the Eleusinian mysteries

[3]“Hiram is
identical with the Sun-Gods of all nations – it is a universal glyph, for all
real Initiation is an internal process, a regeneration, the consummation of
which is the Perfect Man or Master, the goal of human evolution. The Hiram
Legend and the Master's Degree are derived from the Mysteries. They are the
latest expression of the old Sun Myth and the Ancient Rite. We see thus that
the story of Hiram is but a variation of the ancient and universal legend, in
which Osiris, Adonis, Dionysus, Balder, Hu, and many more have played the
principal part.” – Bro. Rev. Charles H. Vail, 32° (The Ancient Mysteries & Modern Masonry)

[4]
“In a few words, then, the object of instruction in all these Mysteries was the
unity of God, and the intention of the ceremonies of initiation into them was,
by a scenic representation of death, and subsequent restoration to life, to
impress the great truths of the resurrection of the dead and the immortality of
the soul.” – Ill.Bro. Albert G. Mackey, M.D. (The Symbolism of Freemasonry)

[6]
“Substantially, [Demeter and Persephone’s] myth is identical with the Syrian
one of Aphrodite (Astarte) and Adonis, the Phrygian one of Cybele and Attis, and
the Egyptian one of Isis and Osiris. In the Greek fable, as in its Asiatic and
Egyptian counterparts, a goddess mourns the loss of a loved one, who
personifies the vegetation, more especially the corn, which dies in winter to
revive in spring; only whereas the Oriental imagination figured the loved and
lost one as a dead lover or a dead husband lamented by his leman or his wife,
Greek fancy embodied the same idea in the tenderer and purer form of a dead
daughter bewailed by her sorrowing mother.” – Sir J.G. Frazer (The Golden Bough)

[7]
In The Symbolism of Freemasonry, Ill.Bro.
Albert G. Mackey compares the two initiatory stages of Mystae and Epopt with the
Masonic Degrees of Fellowcraft and Master Mason, respectively. The Degree of
Entered Apprentice, on the other hand, is compared rather to the extraction of
the oaths of secrecy and the ceremonies of purification which preceded the
Mysteries proper.

[10]
“The images of the Sun, Moon, and Mercury were represented [at the Temple of
Eleusis]…and they are still the three lights of a Masonic Lodge; except that
for Mercury, the Master of the Lodge has been absurdly substituted.” – Albert
Pike (Morals and Dogma)

[11]
Yarker also noted that, like the Dormer Window which lights the Sanctum Sanctorum in some versions of
the Master Mason ritual, “[t]he magnificent temple of Eleusis was lighted by a
single window in the roof”.

[12]
See Wasson, Hofmann, and Ruck’s The Road
to Eleusis for a thorough treatment of the subject of kykeon.

[14]
“At Eleusis, Poseidon was not yet specialized into a sea-god only; he was
Phytalmios, god of plants, and as such…his worship was easily affiliated to
that of Dionysos.” – Jane Ellen Harrison (Prolegomena
to the Study of Greek Religion)

[15]
For a consideration of the tabernacle and its relation to the threshing-floor,
refer to the so-called Draught Ordeal
discussed in The Mysteries of Manna
by Daniel Merkur, Ph.D.

[17]
In The Spirit of Masonry, Bro. William
Hutchinson translates the word in question rather as to revere a stone.

[18]
Clark similarly interpreted the Masonic symbol of the beehive in light of the
Eleusinian Mysteries: “The beehive was one of the emblems of the Eleusinian
Mysteries. The goddess Rhea was represented with a beehive beside her, out of
the top of which arose corn (wheat) and flowers, denoting the renewal of the
seasons and the return of the sun to the vernal equinox.” (The Royal Secret, p. 117)

Disclaimer: This paper entitled. "MASONRY & THE MYSTERIES OF ELEUSIS", was submitted to Tupelo Masonic Lodge No. 318 F&AM for publication by the author, P.D. Newman. The printing of this or any other writing does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Tupelo Masonic Lodge No. 318 F&AM or the Grand Lodge of Mississippi. Please read our Terms of Use for full details.

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